Pages:
Author

Topic: TH1BTC Speculation Thread - Bitfinex Cloud Mining Contract (Read 14215 times)

legendary
Activity: 1867
Merit: 1023
That is true, we don't know whether the outcome of inflated TH1 prices was intentional or not.  I guess from my point of view it doesn't really matter as you need to assume the worst (if the worst case leads to a large profit for someone and isn't too hard to do).  It could have been one person, or it could have just been a trend that got worse and worse (for instance a group of people might have felt that mining difficulty was not going to increase by as much as in the past - they were partially right, but we still saw an average of 5% difficulty increases over the contract's lifetime).

Though it is interesting that once BFX said they wouldn't allow anyone to manipulate the market that the price plunged so dramatically (30-40% in 1-2 days if I remember correctly).  Adding 100 swaps helped, but I don't think that was enough to correct the premium (and swaps had been added before without such a large correction).
legendary
Activity: 4298
Merit: 3209
You obviously haven't read my argument about how the market was imperfect, or you do not understand it.

I agree with your assessments of the market's imperfections. I don't agree that there was any manipulation.
legendary
Activity: 1867
Merit: 1023
You obviously haven't read my argument about how the market was imperfect, or you do not understand it.
legendary
Activity: 4298
Merit: 3209
There is no evidence of manipulation beyond a short squeeze, which is circumstantial at best. The short squeeze in the last 30 days that people were warning about never materialized.

I think the problems in the TH1BTC market were mostly due to swap liquidity. There was a severe lack of swaps for the amount of shorting that was being attempted.
legendary
Activity: 1867
Merit: 1023
Now that the whole TH1 contract fiasco is over.

Ways in which BFX profited from the manipulation of the TH1 contract at the expense of their customers

1. The price premium that was caused by manipulation and the increased volatility due to market manipulation increased the TH1BTC swap rate to two or more times what it should have been.  This doubled the amount of swap fees.

2. The price premium increased the fees collected on trades.

3. (optional)  The price premium may have allowed Bitfinex to sell contracts to the market maker at a higher price than they cost.  The identity of the market maker is unknown and given the manipulation in the market and the way in which contracts were randomly issued this is disturbing.
legendary
Activity: 1867
Merit: 1023
Someone has bid 0.015 for 250 contracts (and forgot to remove it?)- which is 40% over expected mining value (as there are 13-14 hours of mining time left).  However all the TH1 swap is gone.
legendary
Activity: 1867
Merit: 1023
You can finally borrow swap for the entire period of the contract. So shorting is relatively safe.  On the other hand, there isn't much left to short.

Side note: if margin sell is saying 0.3555 and margin buy is 0.3775 - and there haven't been any trades executed at either price, and it isn't a current bid or ask.  What does that mean?  Is it an indication of a hidden order?
legendary
Activity: 1867
Merit: 1023
At 0.34 BTC, the TH1 contract might actually be under-valued (assuming 3% difficulty increase).  Of course the difficulty could increase by more than 3% in the second increase.  And 0.34 BTC might be below market price (there isn't much trading at this price).

legendary
Activity: 1867
Merit: 1023
In the BTC/USD market, big players can counter each other. They cannot do that in the TH1 market.
sr. member
Activity: 336
Merit: 250
Do the thing and you'll have the power.
I wrote up my story of how I lost money trying to expose the manipulation of the TH1 contract.
Exposing Manipulation
Manipulation is just big players making moves.
legendary
Activity: 1867
Merit: 1023
At 0.42 BTC, it looks like the contract might actually be trading without a premium (or the premium is down from 10-15% to only 0-2%)!  With 5% difficulty increase and a 0.2% swap rate - this is about breaking even.  Maybe people are expecting a greater than 5% difficulty increase as I've seen some rumors of new hardware in the works (though I really have no idea if any of it will arrive within the next several weeks).  

Swap is still very hard to get.

There is a very interesting 300 TH1 bid wall at 0.4 BTC. I highly doubt that it will stay up.  When will it move?  Maybe some people think it will move and then the price will collapse. But that would be ignoring fundamentals which in this case are a lot easier to measure than they are for BTC/USD.

Things will get very interesting if the 300 TH1 bid wall disappears.  After that, there is only 1-2 TH1 of bids down to 0.01 BTC! 
legendary
Activity: 1867
Merit: 1023
I wrote up my story of how I lost money trying to expose the manipulation of the TH1 contract.
Exposing Manipulation
legendary
Activity: 1867
Merit: 1023
Hey guys, just to let you know that I've placed a hidden order to close out by bunch of position at a "not-too-distant" price (from current's 0.635)

One thing, though, I'd like to know, is that what would happen if the BTC balance to reach negative with all the negative position "profit" (the expenses of Shorting TH1), while having a positive P/L
eg BTC balance -1, P/L 100.

The Unrealized P/L would be counted as "Net Value" thus accounting for margin or we got more rules on closing of position?

I think it should count as net value, but I am not an expert.   I currently don't have any active margin positions.  If you do have a short position, you should be able to see whether the Unrealized P/L is included in the Net Value of your own position by doing some math.

hero member
Activity: 784
Merit: 1000
Casper - A failed entrepenuer who looks like Zhou
Price falls to 0.73 (down from 0.82) on a 24 hour volume of only 23.  Someone must have pulled the two 100 walls (or most of them).   Swaps increase to 116.   2.2 TH1 swap available.

I was thinking about shorting last night, but there wasn't any swap available.

they will not refund our losses i think, they ignoring us
unclescrooge, from what I've heard in Bitcoin meetups, online and my experience is a hermit guy.

Pretty much hidden and no talking.
hero member
Activity: 784
Merit: 1000
Casper - A failed entrepenuer who looks like Zhou
Hey guys, just to let you know that I've placed a hidden order to close out by bunch of position at a "not-too-distant" price (from current's 0.635)

One thing, though, I'd like to know, is that what would happen if the BTC balance to reach negative with all the negative position "profit" (the expenses of Shorting TH1), while having a positive P/L
eg BTC balance -1, P/L 100.

The Unrealized P/L would be counted as "Net Value" thus accounting for margin or we got more rules on closing of position?
legendary
Activity: 1867
Merit: 1023
Bitfinex has stopped listing the number of outstanding TH1 swaps on the statistics page.
full member
Activity: 169
Merit: 100
Price falls to 0.73 (down from 0.82) on a 24 hour volume of only 23.  Someone must have pulled the two 100 walls (or most of them).   Swaps increase to 116.   2.2 TH1 swap available.

I was thinking about shorting last night, but there wasn't any swap available.

they will not refund our losses i think, they ignoring us
legendary
Activity: 1867
Merit: 1023
Price falls to 0.73 (down from 0.82) on a 24 hour volume of only 23.  Someone must have pulled the two 100 walls (or most of them).   Swaps increase to 116.   2.2 TH1 swap available.

I was thinking about shorting last night, but there wasn't any swap available.
legendary
Activity: 1867
Merit: 1023
Currently low swap rate (0.1364%), low outstanding swaps (102), but no TH1 swap offers.  So who knows what will happen to the swap rate.
full member
Activity: 169
Merit: 100
Having not heard back from Bitfinex for 9 days, I'm launching a signature campaign.  I encourage everyone else who lost money (or anyone who has enjoyed my posts) to join me in asking Bitfinex to do the right thing and fix this mess.



me too nothing, i writed ton of mails.
Pages:
Jump to: